In my early days I had 3 different items published - one in Science, and 2 in
Electronics magazine. In addition, I was the joint recipient of a patent
in the US and Europe as well.

The article in Science (not yet available here) was done while I was in
graduate school at UNC-Chapel Hill. It gave instructions on how to build a
low cost spectroscope capable of observing the Fraunhofer lines in the sun's
spectrum. Construction was of 1/8" birch plywood available from hobby
stores. A pair of razor blades created the slit and a low cost diffraction
grating created the spectrum. I never received a copy of the magazine -
just a photo copy of the article, which is in a file some where!

In ~1975 I developed a new type of telescope controller using the recently
released NE555 timer. It worked like a charm, but I felt it was too simple
and I needed to add more functionality. So several months later after
adding a frequency readout I was about to send a manuscript in to Sky &
Telescope, when they published an article from another person with just the
basics I had done sometime earlier. This design went on to be a commercial
hit.

I later submitted a article to Sky & Telescope of a controller that produced
a true sine wave - other controllers, including my previous design, produced a
square wave. By this time, the Gleanings for ATMs had moved out of
publishing electronic articles, so the manuscript was declined.

In 1989, while working for Roche Biomedical Reference Labs, I was designing
equipment to collect data from medical testing devices. In all of these
designs I was using the RCA 1800 series microprocessor. The development
system was missing a couple of functions I wanted, so I wrote these in assembly
language. One of these I
submitted to Ideas for Design in Electronics magazine. It was accepted
and published on my birthday in 1989. Later that year
I submitted a second article
that allowed the same 1800 series microprocessor to use a new type of memory, an EEROM (electrically
erasable read only memory). Sometime shortly after the second article I
was assigned the RAAS to design and build. I guess I did not feel like
there was anything special in the individual section designs of the RAAS to try to publish them.

While working on the RAAS (Roche Automated Aliquot System), one of the
primary concerns was for cross contamination of blood samples. During a
trip to Tokyo, Japan with two of my supervisors (E. Knesel & D. Shoemaker) we
started developing an idea for a filter that would also remove any chance of
cross contamination. In that the initial concept was conceived in Tokyo
over the course of 1 Half Hour, we dubbed the device the THH for Tokyo Half
Hour. Over the next few weeks I refined the idea and built some prototypes
by epoxing bits of tubing and filters together. A mold was
commissioned and actual units were produced. The idea was strong enough
that patents were applied for and granted both in the US and in Europe.
Here is a copy of the US Patent.

Since those days, I have been involved in the world wide web and my personal
website. Many of my ideas - that would not have seen publication - have
been presented here, and with much acceptance. I often receive email from
people who have found information here they have found useful - and that gives
me great satisfaction. To me, that is what the web should be about.